Statues
by Animako
Summary: What's changed, a thousand years into the future? Sitting on her own in a temple, a girl thinks of Yuna and Spira's past.


A girl one thousand years in the future thinks about Yuna, and the difference she made. Oneshot.

* * *

I'm sitting in the old temple again. It's nice here. Peaceful, quiet. Ivy grows up the sides of the wall, curling around the old statues. Shadows and greenery, sunlight from the hole in the roof, dappling the benevolent faces that look down at me from days gone by. I often wonder what their names were; I feel I'd know them better if I did. But no. That information's been washed away in time.

Except one. Of course I know Lady Yuna - who doesn't? Dead nine hundred years, and still there's not a person on the face of the earth who doesn't know your face, my lady. Or your legend. Even if they don't use your name, they know it: Lady Yuna may be just The Lady in everyday conversation, but we all know the legend and its meaning. Lady Yuna. The symbol of all that's good in Spira.

It was different in your day, wasn't? Now, they pray to you, the Lady summoner-god, not to Yevon or to the Fayth.

I look at this statue and think: she wouldn't have wanted that, would she? But what do I know, really? I can stare at a dignified old statue for however long I want, but under that ancient mask, I can't see how your mind worked. I can guess, I can speculate, but I'll never know. Your age-smoothed face doesn't let me know why you did what you did.

You brought the Eternal Calm, you saved us all. Everyone knows that. So, really, (I think,) you deserved your own Calm. Looking at this statue I don't think you ever got it, though, even if whoever carved you into the stone gave your the grace of a martyr at rest. Martyr's the right word exactly, it seems to me; you died as you lived, spending your life for Spira's sake without thought for your own.

Your eyes are sad, even carved in stone.

I cried, when I heard the story of your life.

* * *

Of course, your statue isn't the only one in the temple. People forget that, just as they did those stories that the statues commemorate. No one can ever tell me who these others the temple remembers are. Not even the priest can.

But in books I found out a few of their names, and some of their stories. Four High Summoners. They died with their Guardians to bring the Calm, long long ago, when Sin still raged against Spira. They would have been honoured in their day, or in the Lady's, but nowadays it's not High Summoners we need, nowadays we only have to revere our Lady Yuna.

Once Sin died, so did any need to honour these heroes.

(One of them, I read, was your father, Lady Yuna. So you were honoured all your life, before you'd done anything to deserve it.)

Did you enjoy that fame, was there any part of it you wanted? You don't look like a lady who craved attention, because if that stone-mason who probably didn't know you preserved your appearance faithfully, you had a calm, retreating air to you that no amount of glory could turn into pride. Your hands are drawn back in what seems like shyness, what at the least I'd call reserve. If a monument to you can still stay modest, I doubt even the idolatry we hold for you today would draw you into egotism.

* * *

You seem dutiful, to me. A summoner for whom it wasn't enough to bring the Eternal Calm. No, you came to the front again when disaster struck. A shade from the Farplane burst through, using an ancient machina named Vegnagun. You defeated it.

Still, you hadn't done enough. Vegnagun had broken a rift in the Farplane, letting the Farplane's restless spirits through.

Yu Yevon, your nemesis and the one who had controlled Sin, broke free. It created a travesty, a monster for it to possess, from all the souls of the Farplane. And you, Yuna, fought it, one last time.

This is the battle no one will admit to, because the truth repels them. The temple's scrolls tell its story, though. The world's had to hear the evidence, has been told by our histories what happened in that battle between Sin and the Final Aeon, but they won't accept it.

You became the Fayth, having been wounded in the fights. And an unknown summoner called you to fight as their Final Aeon.

We must suppose you won your fight, for you never seem to have been a weak woman.

But we don't want to believe that, because that leaves us to face the fact you are the Final Sin that we all must flee from. We can't do as our ancestors did: you destroyed Zanarkand. The tradition of pilgrimages is pointless now. There's nowhere to go.

I wonder why you did it.

You must have known, having brought that so called Eternal Calm. You found something out, and all we can suppose is that you acted, as you always have, for Spira. You must have believed this would be better for the world.

* * *

Like I said, when I heard the story of your life I cried.

* * *

I'm late for school. Goodbye, Yuna.


End file.
